Jäger wasn’t fooled. He lunged at the boot and yipped.
“You’re gonna have to grow into that bark. It sounds a little weak. Like your mama was a bird. Try somethin’ deeper.”
Jäger yipped again.
“Nope. Sounds the same.”
He was attempting to pique his interest with the toy when the front door opened. They both looked over.
“Hey,” Nico said, taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack beside Stone’s. “It’s a mess out there.”
Jäger forgot all about the boot and bounded over to Nico, who bent down to give his head a rub. “What’s up, Trouble?”
Stone stood tall. “I guess I should probably get goin’.”
Nico stood. “Might be too late for that. They’ve closed the Granite Creek bridge. I’m just lucky the office is on this side of it.”
Fuck. There wasn’t another way to get around unless he wanted to drive about five miles out of his way. If the roads were bad enough for them to close the bridge, a ten-mile trek would likely take him a couple of hours. His truck wouldn’t have too much trouble, but anyone else on the road would cause a delay.
“You can stay here,” Stevie said from behind him.
Stone turned. She had wiped the tears away, but her eyes were red-rimmed.
“You okay?” Nico asked Stevie, although his glare was directed at Stone.
She laughed it off. “Yeah. Stone was just bein’ Stone. Tellin’ it like it is.”
Nico rounded on him.
Stone held up both hands. “I didn’t set out to make her cry.”
“He didn’t,” Stevie said, curling her hand around Nico’s muscular forearm.
It was clear Nico wasn’t ready to believe that, his expression skeptical as he looked down at her. “You want me to hit him for you? It’ll make us even.”
Stone grinned at the thought. He still remembered that day. That punch had led to the most incredible night of his life.
“Nah.” Stevie huffed a laugh. “I think we’re good. For now. But maybe you could start a fire?”
Nico nodded, continuing to glance between them as though, in doing so, he might be able to see what happened while he wasn’t there.
“You hungry?” Nico asked Stevie.
“Yeah. I’ve got a pot roast in the oven. It’ll be”—she looked at her watch—“thirty minutes or so before it’s done. I made the cornbread already. I’ll warm it up in a little while.” She looked at Stone. “You good with pot roast?”
He was good with whatever she wanted him to have. But he kept that to himself. “Yeah. If you’ve got enough.”
“More than,” she noted, motioning toward the couch. “Might as well get comfortable.”
That was exactly what he did.
Seventeen
Nico figured he should probably be carefulwhat he wished for.
Of course, getting Stone to the house had been half the battle. The other half had been hoping Stevie wouldn’t saw his nuts off when they were alone together. He was pretty sure Stone’s family jewels were safely intact. In fact, he would go so far as to say she was … happy. At least based on the conversation and laughter that’d been coming from the living room for the past hour. It was a far cry from the tears he’d witnessed when he first got home.
“What about you?” Stone asked.
